ARISTOTLE AND THE EARLIER PERIPATETICS vol.I by Eduard Zeller, B.F.C.Costelloe 1897

—
:
ARISTOTLE'S WAITINGS 153
been copies of the important text-books made during
the long life of Theophrastus. He who cared so well
for his scholars in every other way, by providing for
them gardens and houses and a museum and the means
of maintaining it,
could never have deprived them of
his most precious and most indispensable
possession
his own and his master's texts—if a sufficient substitute
for them were not at hand. Any theory, therefore, as
to an individual book of our collection, that its text
rests solely on a MS. from Apellico's library, ought
to rest, entirely on the internal evidence of the book
itself ;
for Strabo's and Plutarch's suggestion of a general
disappearance of the texts could give it no support.
It is not, however, to be denied that many of the
books show signs leading to the conclusion that in their
present form other hauds than the author's have been
at work. We find corruptions of the text, lacunas in
the logical
movement, displacement of whole sections,
additions that could be made only by later hands, other
additions which are Aristotelian but were originally
designed for some other context, repetitions which
we should not expect in so condensed a style, and
which yet can hardly be late interpolations. 1 Strabo's
story, however, does not serve for the explanation of
these phenomena, for the reason, among others, that
such peculiarities are to be found equally in those texts
1
Cf. with regard to this, not book of the Meteorology (p. 83,
to mention other points, what has n.2),thetenthbookof theSistory
been said before as to the Gate- of Animals (p. 87, n. 1), n. if/vxys
gories (p. 64, n. 1), n. ty/iiiveias (p. 89, n. 2), bk. v. Be Gen. An.
(p. 66, n. 1), the Rhetoric (p. 72, (p.92,n. 2),theMhics (p. 98, n.l),
n. 2), the Metaphysics (p. 76, n. and thePoeties (p. 102, n. 2); and
3),the seventh book of the Physios theremarks inch. xiii.mfra upon
(p. 81, n. 2 ad Jin.), the fourth the state of the Polities,
154 ARISTOTLE
which we can prove to have been current before Apellico.
We must explain them really as arising in part
•
from the circumstances under which these treatises
were written and issued, 1 in part from the way they
were used for teaching purposes, 2 in part from the
carelessness of transcribers and the many accidents to
which each transcript was exposed.
If we pass to the discussion of the time and sequence
in which the writings of Aristotle were produced, we
must remember that this is of far less importance than
in the case of the writings of Plato. It is clear that
Aristotle commenced his career as a writer during his
first residence at Athens, 3 and it is probable that he
continued his literary activity in Atarneus, Mitylene
and Macedonia. The extant writings, however, seem
all to belong to the second Athenian period, although
much preparation may -probably have been made for
them before. The proof of this lies partly in certain
traces of the dates of their production, which control
not only those books in which they occur, bat also all
that are later
1
4
and partly in the common references
Cf. p. 108 sqq. course and position being accu-
2 How easily, by this means, rately described as from subseexplanations
and repetitions may quent personal inquiry. The
find their way into the text, and Polities refer to the Holy War
greater or smaller sections may as an event in the past (v. 4,
come to be repeated, is perfectly 1304, a, 10), and to the expedition
plain, and is proved on a large of Phalsecus to Crete, which took
scale by the parallel case of the place at its conclusion about 01.
Eudemian Physics and Ethics. 108, 3 (Diodobus, xvi. 62), with
3
See p. 56 sqq. He left Athens in a veaxrrl (ii. 10, fin.'), but the same
B.C. 345-4 and returned in 335-4. book refers to the assassination
4
Thus Meteor, i. 7, 345, a, 1, of Philip (B.C. 336) in v. 10, 1311,
mentions a comet which was vis- b, 1, without the least indication
ible when Nicomachus (O1.109, 4, of its having been a very recent
B.C. 341) was Archon in Athens, its event. The Rhetoric in ii. 23,